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Τετάρτη, 26 Μαρτίου 2014

Whether
fleeing from conflict, persecution or simply looking for a better
life, Europe has faced a a flood of immigrants trying to break
through its borders. There has been a recent influx in the numbers of
Sub-Saharan migrants coming into the Spanish enclave of Melilla – a
50 percent influx from 2013. Similarly to the border control between
the United States and Mexico, Spain has constructed several fences to
deter immigrants as well as strict border controls. The risks of
coming over are high. Many migrants incur injuries along the way
either from Moroccan guards beating them or the perils of jumping the
fence. Many
others fail to get across at all.

Thousands
of fleeing Syrians are being held in dilapidated refugee camps while
right-wingers demand their expulsion and the authorities build a huge
border fence to keep new asylum-seekers out.

Visiting
the Voenna Rampa refugee camp, on the outskirts of Sofia, is not for
the faint-hearted. The place is overcrowded, there is no hot water at
the moment, and medical care is scarcely available for the hundreds
of people who are packed into the camp.

They are Syrian
refugees, including women and children, who have entered Bulgaria and
thus the EU by crossing the Turkish border illegally.

“We
live six families to one room, separating out private spaces inside
with sheets. Everything around is dirty and we lack fresh water,
while the heating is not working properly. This is hard to handle,”
said one of the refugees, a young man called Ravan.

MELILLA, Spain — It is easy to pick out the new arrivals at the shelter for
immigrants here on this tiny patch of Spain in North Africa. One man limps by
on crutches with a plaster cast on his ankle. Another has a bandaged arm in a
sling. AbbdolCisse, 19, had stitches on his face.

“The police in Morocco were throwing stones at us, at our heads,” Mr. Cisse
said recently, explaining his injuries. “They had metal bars, and they hit our
legs while we were climbing.”

Ten years ago Spain spent more than 30 million euros building up the
barriers around Melilla and Ceuta, its two enclaves surrounded by Morocco on
the northern coast of Africa, which offer the only land borders between the
promise of Europe and the despair of Africa. And for a while the investment seemed
to work.